From my apartment

From my a apartment on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia, I can look out over Gaza city through the tiny screen of my television. At nine thirty Saudi Time(GMT+3) I heard that the Jami' Filastine, the Mosque of Palestine in Gaza had had a bomb dropped near it. I used to live at the corner of Shari' Filastine and Shari' Tariq ...the same tariq who gave the name to Gibraltar. The mosque was only about 40 meters from my apartemt where the English Center was. It is also an area of clothing factories and many African Palestinians live there.

I well remember the barber shop I used to go to in the street opposite the Palestine mosque. It is at the top of a slope that goes down to the sea. Not far from our English Language Center was a secondary school where the priciple helped us get permission and license from the Palestinian Authority to have a school.

The Israelis started their ground assault tonight and there is fighting in Beit Hanoon, near the Erez Crossing. There is also fighting in Beit Lahia. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed. The Israeli army entered Gaza at three entry points, called ma'abir in Arabic: Beit Hanoon, Shaji'iyya, and Rafah in the South. Shaji'iyya goes rignt into Gaza City and is a quarter not far from where I marched with a funeral demonstration from the Palestine Mosque to the Israeli settlement of Nasriyya in 0ct 1995.

At about 10 o'clock Saudi time, 9 o'clock Gaza time, I heard the report from inside Gaza on Hamas TV(Ramattan Gaza Live) which is carried by Al-Arabiyya tonight...that the Israeli Navy was lobbing bombs at the coast of Gaza City. This would be Mukhayyam Shati, a maze of one story houses with corrugated tin roofs where the original refugees kicked out of Ashkelon had to settle.

This is the ninth day of the Israeli attack on Gaza. Up until now it had been constant bombing of administrative buildings and mosques, causing 430 deaths and thousands of wounded.

I guess the direct reports of the Al-Arabiyya are only during the day, when I am teaching. Now the TV is the night view from a tall building in Gaza and labeled Ramattan Gaza Live, which is the Hamas TV station, bombed in the first days by the Israelis, but apparently still working.